Is Cigarette Tax In State's Future? Chiles Hopes So

Gov. Lawton Chiles lost his cool during hours of discussions last fall over his $42 billion budget proposal - and the services the state couldn't afford to provide.

"He kind of reared up and said, `This doesn't make sense!'" recalled Paul Belcher, chief policy coordinator for human services in the Governor's Office of Planning and Budget. "We were briefing him on children's substance abuse and mental health services ... and he said, `This is just not acceptable. Why can't we invest enough money to make a difference?'''

The result was Chiles' proposal to increase state cigarette taxes by 10 cents a pack.

The tax would go for $94.4 million in education, prevention and treatment programs aimed at keeping children in Florida away from cigarettes, alcohol and drugs.

The initiative, called Tobacco, Education and Child Health (TEACH), also would unleash the state's first aggressive media campaign against smoking.

"I believe the public is supportive," Chiles said. "To me, it's one of those [issues) where I have logic and reason on my side. But I'm up against the mantra, `We're not going to be the Republican [Legislature) which voted for new taxes.'''

The cigarette tax is the premier legislative battle of 1997 for Chiles, a Democratic governor fighting off lame-duck status.

In the next-to-last year of his second term, he has failed time and again to pass tax proposals. The Legislature, in full Republican control for the first time this century, is likely to be a desert in terms of nourishing new taxes.

But the governor hopes to make TEACH a debate not just about a tobacco tax, but about children's needs. For instance:

-- About 50,000 children and adolescents need alcohol or drug treatment or prevention services. His plan would invest another $26.5 million in such programs.

-- Almost 100,000 Florida children with serious emotional disturbances or mental illnesses are not getting screening, assessments, therapy or residential treatment. He wants an additional $24.6 million for such services.

An example of the need are two sisters, ages 4 and 5, both battered. With their mother in jail, they have been shuffled in and out of seven foster homes.

The girls lash out by kicking, breaking windows and setting fires. Nightmares interrupt their sleep. But because of inadequate state funds, they are on a waiting list for residential psychological treatment, according to the Florida Department of Children & Families.

"Clearly the funding is needed," said John Daigle, executive director of the Florida Alcohol and Drug Abuse Association. "And people are more supportive of a tax if there's a connection between the source and what it's going to be used for."

House Speaker Daniel Webster, R-Orlando, and Senate President Toni Jennings, R-Orlando, say programs to wean children from tobacco, alcohol and drugs probably deserve more funding.

But Webster is curt about new taxes: "No."

When Jennings was asked about her position on the cigarette tax, she said, "I don't know if I have one," But she has said the state should try to live "within existing revenues."

Philip Morris lobbyist John French said he thinks legislative passage of the tax is unlikely.

"Of course, that's fine with us," French said. But, he added, "If the governor takes this on as one of his priorities and decides to fight this out, this could be a fight."

Chiles has a history of battling tobacco.

In 1995, he vetoed a bill that would have erased the grounds for a state lawsuit against tobacco companies; last year, he doggedly foiled an attempt to override his veto. The landmark suit, to be heard this summer in West Palm Beach, will decide whether tobacco firms are liable for smoking-related medical expenses paid for by the state.

But Rep. Tom Feeney, R-Oviedo, Webster's right-hand man, has called higher cigarette taxes a financial bust for the state. He says the tax would encourage smokers to drive across the border or go to Indian-run shops for cheaper cigarettes.

For tobacco companies, the stakes are higher than a dime-per-pack tax increase.

TEACH would include $15 million for a statewide campaign to promote "healthy lifestyles" among Florida youth and $28.3 million for new efforts to keep schoolchildren away from tobacco, alcohol and drugs. That would supplement a federally financed $14 million campaign to spread the drug-free message in Florida schools.

Chiles anticipates a widespread and unrelenting anti-smoking campaign similar to the one California has tried.

In 1988, California voters approved Proposition 99, a 25 cents-a-pack increase in the cigarette tax, with 58 percent support. Although much of the tax pays for direct health services, it also finances an $89 million-a-year anti-smoking campaign.